This invention relates to the cooking of food in a restaurant operation; and more particularly to the efficient producing and serving of hot food portions during peak demand periods as well as off demand periods.
This invention is particularly concerned, as described herein, with the operation of a spaghetti restaurant wherein it is particularly important, from the standpoint of customer satisfaction, that the spaghetti be served hot and cooked just right.
In larger spaghetti restaurants, it is usual procedure to precook at least several hours ahead of mealtime demand, the quantity of spaghetti that is expected to be needed for such mealtime demand period. The precooking is not complete cooking however, and the spaghetti is normally cooked to possibly 65% or 70% of completion and then chilled until needed.
At the time of need, that is the filling of orders from customers, it is usual to finish cook the spaghetti in hot water and then separate it into serving portions. A difficulty with this finish cooking technique is that as a practical matter a relatively large quantity of spaghetti is finished cooked in one cooking vessel, and this finish cooking technique cannot achieve the desideratum of removing the spaghetti from the cooking vessel at exactly the right time to prevent sogginess and delivering the serving portions to the customer under ideal conditions of temperature and consistency. With the hot water finish cooking method, if the spaghetti is left in the vessel very little too long, the spaghetti will be too soggy for maximum customer appeal. With this technique it is difficult to control the finish cooking time.
An object of this invention is to provide apparatus and method for the finish cooking of spaghetti which has been divided into serving portions (referred to as preportions) prior to the finish cooking, to enable the immediate delivery to the customer of properly cooked and hot spaghetti.
Another object of this invention is to provide apparatus and method for the finish cooking of predivided serving portions of spaghetti in a manner which will permit the finish cooker to keep up with a large demand rate of serving orders and to deliver hot spaghetti cooked to the proper consistency.
Still another object of this invention is to provide method and apparatus to enable the finish cooker to adjust the rate of finish cooking in accordance with the demand.
These objects are accomplished in apparatus which includes a steam cabinet having a plurality of individual cooking compartments opening to its front wall. Each compartment is closed except for an access opening in the front wall just sufficiently large to pass a loaded cooking vessel. A removable floor member is supported in each compartment providing a discontinuous support surface elevated from the compartment bottom wall. Each compartment access opening is dimensioned to readily pass a cooking vessel with an associated food portion and the floor member support surface is disposed generally in the plane of the lower edge of the access opening. A steam dispensing nozzle means is disposed in each compartment generally in a plane adjacent the upper edge of the access opening for directing steam toward the cooking vessel. A plurality of cooking vessels for use with the apparatus each comprise a body having a planar bottom wall with a laterally projecting handle, the vessel body being dimensioned to pass readily into and out of the access openings with a food portion therein, and the bottom wall having perforations to permit passage of steam and moisture downwardly through the vessel and its contents.
The method directly involving the use of the apparatus of the invention includes the transferring of preportions of food, which are precooked and divided into serving portions, into individual cooking vessels and, after directing a supply of steam to the cabinet, inserting the loaded cooking vessels into cabinet compartments in a selected compartment sequence whereby the food is directly exposed to steam from the nozzle means. After this loading cycle for several compartments is completed, the food in the first compartment will have been finish cooked. The unloading cycle then follows with the same sequence of compartments, and includes the following steps for each compartment:
1. removing the cooking vessel from the compartment and,
2. immediately transferring the food portion to a preheated serving plate, for delivery to the customer after receiving desired sauce and/or other food articles. In more detail, the steps preparatory to the finish cooking include precooking the spaghetti in large quantities to about 65% to 70% of completion; dividing the spaghetti into the preportions; and chilling the spaghetti to remove all precooking heat.
The novel features and the advantages of the invention, as well as additional objects thereof, will be understood more fully from the following description when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.